Rather than viewing Freud as a presumptuous Viennese physician who late in life attempted to “apply” some of his provocative psychological speculations to various social phenomena, this essay argues that from first to last, Freud was a social theorist. Indeed, what drew Freud to the study of biology and medicine was precisely the hope of addressing scientifically the most fundamental cultural problems: the nature of man and his culture; the origins of religion, morality, and tradition and the nature of their extraordinary power; the sources of social order and disorder; the direction of contemporary cultural development; and, finally, the problem of how to live in a disenchanted and psychologically impoverished world. Reading Freud in this manner moves his ““cultural”” texts from the periphery to the center of his work and makes possible an appreciation of the more complex, coherent, and illuminating social theory that lies at its heart.

这篇文章并没有认为弗洛伊德是一位自以为是的维也纳医生，他一辈子都试图将他的一些挑衅性的心理推测“应用”到各种社会现象上，而是认为弗洛伊德从始至终都是社会理论家。的确，吸引弗洛伊德进行生物学和医学研究的正是希望科学地解决最基本的文化问题：人的本性及其文化；宗教，道德和传统的起源以及其非凡力量的性质；社会秩序和混乱的根源；当代文化发展的方向；最后，是一个如何生活在一个精神错乱和精神贫困的世界中的问题。